Visual Literacy

Kress and Leeuwen

Grammar of Visual Design

Salience
Salience
refers to the
feature in a
composition
that is most
prominent.
Jeffrey Smart The Guiding Spheres II (Homage to Cezanne)
1979 Edition Size 499 All images Estate of Dr Jeffrey Smart
AO

An image can be made salient

through:
Placement: usually an image
becomes heavier if placed towards
the top or left.
Colour
Size
Focus
Distance
A combination of these things.

What is most salient?

What part of this

image is most
salient?
Why is it most
salient?

Reading paths
A reading path is the path you take
through a visual text. The path
moves from the most salient to the
least salient elements.
It can be created through the gaze of
the subject (i.e. an offer).

Describing the reading

path.
In this
image, what
path/s
does/do
your eyes
follow?
Jeffrey Smart Bondi Penthouse 2002
Edition Size 499 All images Estate
of Dr Jeffrey Smart AO

Vectors
A vector is a line that leads your eye
from one element to another.
A vector is the visible line.

The Last Supper

Compositional axis
The horizontal
axis:
The left, is
known or given;
The right is new
or unknown.

The vertical
axis:
The upper section
is ideal;
The lower elements
are real.

Does the theory work?

Framing
Elements in a layout can be
disconnected and marked off from
each other or connected. If elements
are cut off from one another they are
strongly framed.

Framing.
Framing can be achieved by borders,
discontinuities of colour and shape,
or by white space.
Connectedness can be achieved by
vectors and devices such as
overlapping or superimposition of
images.

Tracey Moffatt Australia, 1960

Up in the sky (no. 1)
from the series of 25 prints Up in the sky
1997
colour photolithograph on paper
61.0 x 76.0 cm (image)
Monash Gallery of Art, City of Monash Collection
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

Gaze
Demands and
offers.
Demand: subject
looks out of the
image at the
responder.
This establishes a
connection
between
subject
The portrait
of Bindo Altoviti
by Raphael (c 1515)
and viewer.

Gaze
Offer: The figure looks away.
The viewer is a detached
onlooker.
Can create a reading path to
the offered object.

Tracey Moffatt Australia,

1960
Job hunt, 1976
from the series of 10 prints
Scarred for life I
1994
colour photolithograph on
paper
80.0 x 60.0 cm (image)
Monash Gallery of Art, City of
Monash Collection
Courtesy of the artist and
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery,
Sydney

Social Distance.
A close-up is intimate.
A mid-shot suggests a personal
or a social distance.
Long-shot -the whole figure
framed = social distance. This
type of framing suggests that
context is important.

Lighting and Colour

Lighting creates mood
-Shadows may suggest concealment
or fear and despair
-Light, hope and inspiration.
-Soft light, romance or nostalgia.
Colour can be symbolic

How is mood created here?

Monet, The Water-Lily Pond, 1899

Thomas Kinkade

s Kinkade painted realistic, bucolic and idyllic subjects

been estimated that 1 in every 20 American homes owns a copy of one of his pa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kinkade

What is the effect of the use of

light?

Caravaggio
The Incredulity of Saint Thomas
1601-02; Oil on canvas, 42 1/8 x 57 1/2 in; Neues Palais, Potsdam

Modality/credibility

Lowest modality
graphics are the
least real.
Highest modality
is most real.